Pittsburgh Steelers Sign Third Round Draft Pick

The Pittsburgh Steelers are taking care of business on the South Side. Friday morning the team announced that they’ve signed their third-round draft pick, Dri Archer, to a four-year deal. Financial terms of the contract were not released. The team now has eight out of their nine 2014 draft picks signed to contracts.

Dri Archer is a 5’8”, 173lb rb/wr selected with the 97^th overall pick in the 2014 draft out of Kent State. He’s most known for his blazingly fast speed where he ran the fastest, 40-time at the NFL Scouting Combine with 4.26 seconds. That was the fastest time ever recorded behind Chis Johnson, who ran a 4.24 since the NFL began electronically clocking the 40-yard dashes. Archer figures to be a multi-purpose player as he has practiced with both the running backs and receivers so far in the Steelers’ OTA’s. He also will most likely be serving as punt returner.

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When the Steelers set out this offseason to get younger and faster on defense, they surely achieved that with their free agent signings and draft picks, but Archer is certainly expected to inject some speed into the Steelers offense. As Bob Labriola of the Steelers Digest explains, to talk about Archer’s speed and see his Kent State highlights is one thing, but in the OTA’s so far he’s proving to be as fast as advertised.

"“When you watch Dri Archer’s highlights from his college career at Kent State, he looks very fast. When you watch Dri Archer on the field with the Steelers, he looks very fast. Very fast against Kent State’s competition is one thing, but very fast on a field filled with NFL-caliber players stamps Archer as a weapon-in-waiting.” – Bob Labriola"

The Steelers now only have second-round pick, Stephon Tuitt, left to get under contract for the 2014 Steelers Rookie Class.